Artificial lighting is used for many applications, such as e.g. the lighting of a room or rooms in a home, or for the illumination of other spaces such as e.g. offices, restaurants, museums, and shops. The control of artificial lighting may be manual, wherein a lighting system may be provided with a manual switch. The lights may be turned on by a person present in a space by means of the manual switch, thereby illuminating the space. Instead of a manual operation, there may be provided an automatic presence detection arrangement which is connected to the lighting system. Upon detection by the sensor of the presence of a person in a space, the lights may be turned on. Analogously, when the person leaves the space, he may manually turn off the lights. Alternatively, an automatic presence detection arrangement may detect that no person is present in the space, and turn off the lights automatically.
Both for manually and automatically controlled lighting systems, lights are often completely turned on or off. In other words, a light source is often switched on to (or off from) a specific power of the light source. However, for certain applications, a fast change in lighting intensity with a sharp change from “on” to “off” or vice versa may be discomforting for the eyes. Moreover, passing from a space with bright light to a space which is dark (or vice versa), may limit the ability of a person, at least for a time, to see properly, as the pupils of the eyes need time to adapt to the new setting of the light. For this purpose, it is of interest to provide a convenient adaptation of the lighting.
Prior art apparatuses and methods, however, do not provide a satisfactory adaptation of the lighting. Thus, there is a need for providing new devices and methods providing a more convenient and/or effective lighting control.